The Savage Gentleman
Page 10
But the news did not travel far. It was printed in a South African paper. The Associated Press missed it.
The tramp freighter would steam unhailed for many weeks.
McCobb sighed. "If your father could have lived--"
"I've thought of that many times--since yesterday."
"The island's almost gone now."
"Yes."
From amidships came the sound of Jack's banjo and an accompaniment of laughter.
McCobb located Henry. Henry hung over the rail of the bridge and watched the men work. He never tired of watching them. His interest was like that of an entomologist who has found a new species.
McCobb was excited.
"Henry! There's an instrument on this ship that sends messages through the air!"
"No! Where to?"
"God knows where. Everywhere. They can send a message ashore."
"Good Lord!"
"Those wires up there are part of it. The fellow who sits in that little house yonder does it with a key like a telegraph key."
They stared in stunned silence.
"We can let them know in New York--"
Henry nodded. "Sure. If such a thing is possible. A few days before we get in--no use bothering anybody now. Nobody to bother anyway--except my father's lawyers--or their firm."
"That's right. Then--maybe--they'll send someone to meet us. We may need somebody. There will probably be a lot of newfangled things we won't understand. Like this thing that telegraphs through the air. Come on and look at it."
The grinning operator allowed them to listen to a flow of dots and dashes through his head phones. They modestly planned to announce their rescue and arrival when they were a few days offshore. They hoped that someone would meet them. They had a poor notion of the drama their arrival would cause.
Chapter Ten: THE SAVAGE
OLD Elihu Whitney--he was over eighty--sat in the library of his penthouse. The full beard that had replaced his muttonchop whiskers was now white, His body had shrunk, so that his clothes hung a little loosely upon him, but he would not send new measurements to his tailor. His face was patrician and as bold as it had always been.
He was somewhat restive--he had been incessantly restive since his formal retirement from business--but the only signs of it were the impatience and fidgetiness with which he unfolded his newspaper and spread a napkin on his lap.
It was his custom to breakfast in the library, sitting in front of the French windows which overlooked first a balcony and then a panorama of the summits of Manhattan.
The windows were open--for it was early June.
While he fiddled with his food and scanned the paper through his spectacles, his granddaughter momentarily appeared at the door.
"Going out," she said.
He turned and smiled. His reward was a flash--a glitter-bright eyes, bright hair, bright smile, bright clothes.
"Did you get up this early or have you been up?"
She laughed in the hall.
He heard the elevator hum and the shunt and slam of the door. He sighed. There was a reference to him in the paper. Dean of the New York bar, it said.
Elihu Whitney grunted with a disapproval that was not real.
The telephone rang.
He beat his butler to it by a yard and scowled at the man ferociously.
"Elihu Whitney speaking!"
His voice still had the power to boom.
"Yes," he said. He passed his hand over his beard. "Eh? Radio message?
Castaways? What's that?"
A new note came in his voice.
"Listen, Sid. Be sure that's the name. Be certain it was Henry Stone, son of Stephen. Because if it is--"
He hung up.
He stood in the center of the room and swore. He swore like a soldier, with glee and gusto and variety. His old hands were doubled into gnarled fists. His eyes were full of fire.
"What a thing! What a thing! Thank God I lived. It can't be! It would be! I wonder--no. Yes. It would happen that way. Stephen would--"
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"Oh--Stokes--get the hell out of here."
"Yes, sir."
"No--don't. Don't go. Wait. Good God, what a blow this will be to the directorate.
What a shock to Voorhees. I wonder if he'll be competent? If Stephen trained him?
Mavbe--"
"You feel all right, sir?" Whitney stiffened and realized that his incoherence must have sounded strange.
"I never felt better in my life, Stokes. Never. I feel like a spring lamb. And I'm going to do a little bit of work, Stokes. I think 1 am. I wouldn't be surprised if it was my masterpiece."
"Yes, Sir."
Whitney paced the floor.
"Get Sid back on the wire."
He took the instrument.
"Sid? Your father. You're sure?"
"We radioed for confirmation. The ship's a tramp. Out of Batavia coming to New York. First trip here. Swenson Line docks. Captain vouched for everything and the Swenson people say he's thoroughly reliable. The message was from the men. Just a formal notification and a request to be met. The signature was David McCobb--name of the engineer he took in Liverpool in eighteen-ninety-seven--and Henry Stone."
"It's unbelievable."
"We're pretty excited down here, of course. That's why I called you. It means that all the Stone properties will be turned over--a big order. Twenty-two newspapers, now, you know. And Voorhees' gang will be subject to him. Raise hell with politics. That is--
unless he's non compos--"
"I know what it will do. Keep it quiet, will you?"
"Can't. The Swenson Line got the message first. They let it out."
"What ?"
"They, turned it over to the papers. Good publicity for them, I suppose. We've had fifty calls an hour ever since. The whole Record staff is parked in our office now.
Voorhees called up and he was wild."
"What did he say?"
"He said he was running the show in this town and he intended to keep on running it, new owner or no new owner. Then he sputtered for a while. Then he said he'd fight any effort to interfere with him from here to hell."
"What did you say?"
"I said that nobody had made any effort to interfere with him."
"Yes?"
"That's all. He knows you and I can't touch him while he keeps the bankbooks in order and the profits high. He knows this Stone--if he comes--can reorganize all twenty-two papers in two hours if he wants to. So I told him that Stone was a naked savage who couldn't speak a word of English."
"Is he?" Whitney asked, his heart in his mouth.
"The actual description is pretty terse and I've managed to keep that much dark.
But I gather from it that he's anything but a naked savage."
Whitney's heart beat again.
"He's Stephen Stone's son, Sid. Stephen's and Nellie Larsen's. And God makes people like them once in a long time. I tell you--hell is loose."
The lawyer hung up and sat down in his chair. He laughed like a boy. He slapped his thigh. Tears streamed down his face.
"If he's only like his father! If he's only like Stephen," Whitney repeated. "There'll be hell to pay and blood in the street and Vorhees--oh, boy!--Voorhees will have to move to Timbuctoo and raise pigeons!"
Henry wore a Prince Albert. His black tie was neatly knotted on his white shirt.
Cloth-topped shoes hurt his feet. The top hat on his head was a size too small and he had to hold it in place with his hand.
He stood at the rail and stared at the lights of the distant city. They rose like a fountain of fire to breathless heights. The Cjoda rode at anchor in the bay.
McCobb tugged at the coat.
"Laddie! I've been speaking to you."
"I'm sorry,"
"Look at it."
"I'm looking."
"They've built it higher than the mountains. Did you ever dream of such buildings? I can't believe my eyes. But I can catch a glimpse of
the old Battery there--and that's familiar. It makes me ache to see it. The rest is crazy.
"It's--it's--"
"I know. Did ye see the ship on the other side?"
"I did."
It was the Leviathan, riding at Quarantine. They could not say any more, but stood with locked arms, staring dazedly at the mountain of light which was Manhattan.
A launch came alongside. Men climbed aboard. They were directed aft by the captain. McCobb and Henry turned from their rapture.
One of the men stepped forward.
"Mr. McCobb? Mr. Stone? I'm Sidney Whitney."
The sound of familiar English startled both men.
Henry stretched out his hand in the dark.
"Thank you for coming."
"You're Stone, eh?"
Henry could feel the scrutiny.
"Well--I congratulate you on your home-coming." The voice was warm and excitement ran through it.
"We cannot say much," Henry replied. "We are both-overcome."
The long lessons in manners and conversation seemed to desert him. He felt half blind and his limbs were heavy.
"I can understand." Mr. Whitney took McCobb's hand. "My father--Elihu Whitney--is waiting on shore. I've arranged to take you off in a launch."
"Yes."
Dully, they followed Whitney. They went over the side of the ship--McCobb with greater ease than the lawyer's son. They sat in the launch. It rushed over the obsidian river toward the pile of stars that made the skyscrapers.
"We forgot Jack!" Henry said.
Mr. Whitney leaned toward him.
"We arranged for his disembarkation in the morning, All this is irregular. It required considerable--maneuvenng."
"Oh."
"Couldn't I go back and stay with him?" McCobb asked suddenly. His tone revealed that he had been crying.
"If you like."
' I'd rather. I'd prefer to come into all this in daylight--slowly," McCobb said.
The launch put back. Then it left the Gjoda again, making a great half-circle of foam. Whistles boomed. Tugs and ferries slid over the water. The small boat rocked on their swells.
Nobody spoke to Henry--and he was glad. He never took his eyes from the skyscrapers.
In the seat beside him, Whitney regarded him with as much attention as he gave the buildings. What the lawyer saw satisfied him.
The boat reached a pier and dove into the shadows. Its motor died. It bumped.
Henry stepped upon the shores of America.
The pier was covered and its vast, crate-filled interior was only dimly lighted.
Sidney Whitney hurried him through it.
At the far end was a door. Beyond the door, the street. And standing in the street was a vehicle. No horses were attached to it. A door in its side opened. Whitney propelled him through it.
Henry found himself in a little room that was lighted. A large, old man sat in it on a long seat.
"Dad, this is Henry Stone."
"Sit here."
They shook hands.
Henry sat.
The little room--the entire vehicle--moved forward. It gained speed rapidly and, although curtains were drawn over the windows, Henry knew that the speed was considerable.
He looked at the other men. They had stretched out their feet so he stretched out his feet. They were looking at him--Sidney Whitney even leaning around his father-and they did not seem to be interested in the jolting and swinging of the vehicle, so he tried to ignore it. Once, however, on a turn, he lost his balance and grasped with an in voluntary wildness for support.
"There's a little cord," Elihu Whitney said in a kind voice.
"Oh. Thanks. I'm afraid I'm a trifle awkward. haven't ridden in anything like this, you see--"
"Good Lord! That's right. My God, Stone, I apologize. I should have warned you about the turns."
Henry smiled, "No harm done. What's it called?"
"It's a Rolls-Royce. That is to say--it's an automobile."
"From the Latin, eh?"
Whitney senior sucked in his breath and stared at the young man.
"Yes. Do you know Latin?"
"Just a bit," Henry answered. "Livy and Pliny."
"Your father--you don't mind if I am rather brutally frank and curious--your father educated you?"
Henry nodded. "We had a large library, of course. We tried to make my education, in so far as it was formalized, a copy of the usual college course for the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science. Then father had me study for a Ph.D., and an M.A. which he eventually awarded. I'm afraid"--Henry's smile was pleasant--"my degrees wouldn't have much standing and my knowledge is certainly antiquated, but it was the best we could do."
"When--when did Stephen--?"
"In nineteen-twenty-nine," Henry replied. "Of heart failure. We found him in the garden."
"I see. He was a great man, your father."
"He was."
"I suppose he told you all about himself?"
Henry nodded. "There was plenty of time to talk."
"Yes." Elihu Whitney peered through the curtains. "We stole you off the ship--for various reasons. I imagine you know that you will immediately fall heir to your father's papers?"
"Yes. He did everything in his power to make me thoroughly equipped to run them."
"Then he thought you'd come back?"
"He hoped."
"Oh. I presume that you realize your father's properties have expanded? They now embrace twenty-two newspapers in all the large cities, and eleven banks."
Henry started. "No!"
"Valued at something like two hundred and eighty million dollars and perhaps the most influential section of the country's press under one head. The head--of course--is the self-perpetuating committee left by your father."
Henry looked dazedly at the lawyer.
"I didn't guess that. Of course--I'll simply have to let the men in office continue. I am a babe in the woods."
Whitney did not answer because the car stopped.
Henry had a glimpse of brilliant lobby, an interminable elevator ride which, by its revelation of flashing doors, gave him a better idea of the height of the buildings than his observations from the bay, and they were in the Whitney library.
The three men stood there--all of them silent with wonder.
Whitney inadvertently offered a cigar to Henry and was surprised when he took it.
He was on the point of warning the young man when Henry spoke for himself.
"This is certainly fine tobacco. We had our own plants on the island--but none of our cigars could be compared with this one."
Sidney Whitney did not stay. He made his apologies and departed--after one lingering look at the islander.
Elihu waved Henry into a chair.
"Now. It will be hard to know where to begin and what to say. First--I'm going to insist that you accept my hospitality for the time being. I'm afraid--"
"That's immensely kind of you."
"Good. One thing settled. Now--I can't give you a history of the world since eighteen-ninety-seven in a few minutes, but I'll tell you what I think of. And I'll tell you about your papers. They're run by a man named Voorhees who, to my way of thinking, is corrupt. But I can't remove him as long as his policy is financially successful--and that it has certainly been. He's a politician, and a liar. A thief and a grafter. I'm telling that to you as your lawyer.
"I'll go into the details of New York corruption with you later. But I imagine"--
and it was only Whitney's keenness of imagination that started him off on so accurate a track--"that you'll want to know first about airplanes and the radio and these buildings.
About science and medicine and the war. About the world. To begin with--"
Whitney talked. He talked for two hours--refreshing himself sometimes from his vivid memory of the world in 1897 and sometimes from the face of the man who sat before him.
Henry drank his words. Every syllable stuck in his mind.
She scarcely noticed Henry--her eyes, in fact, did not even reach his face.
She was bursting with excitement. She must have concluded subconsciously that he was some business visitor from the hinterland.
"Grandfather! Grandfather! The most priceless thing has happened! Probably you knew it and didn't tell me."
Whitney tried to halt her, but there was no chance.
"They've found Stephen Stone's son. They've brought him from a desert island.
He's a savage. He can't say a word in any language and he has big toes. He goes naked and snaps at people. He's as hairy as a monkey, Here's a special issue of the Record--
telling all about it, and suggesting that he be put in the zoo since he obviously can't do anything."
She thrust the paper into her grandfather's hands and looked up at him. He had just winked very slowly at, Henry.
But Henry had not seen the wink.
His face was bloodless.
The great muscles on his jaws were knotty.
His hands hung limp.
He stared at Marian. At her piquant black hat. At the golden hair that showed beneath it. At her white brow and her arched eyebrows, her great blue eyes, her scarlet lips, the curve of her throat and the curve of her breast, the shape of her body, the silken stockings that covered her legs invisibly and the shoes on her feet.
And he had heard her voice. No one had ever told him about a woman's voice!
She turned toward him. Their eyes met. Marian stepped back, but she could not tear away her gaze. She had never seen anything like it.
He was a volcano.
His shoulders were hunched, as if he were lifting the world.
His eyes went black and liquid.
His hands clenched.
He began to tremble.
Elihu Whitney, at first, thought that he had been taken violently ill. Then he understood and a compassion dreadful in its intensity mastered him.
A clock ticked.
The corners of Henry's mouth twitched--as if he were trying to smile--but the imitation was ghastly.
Marian, after eternity, said, ''I'm sorry."
The words relaxed everyone--made them remember that they were people.
Henry suddenly bowed and said, "I beg your pardon."